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I never actually said the old system was better btw, so good job putting words in my mouth. I just dislike the current iteration of the AI they are using, from the reviews and let's plays I've seen of it, it looks broken and buggy (ships driving on land, wut?). It could and should be improved to make it less schizophrenic. It's got potential, but it doesn't reach it from what I've seen.

This is a problem with gaming these days: devs seem to pool their entire budget into making a game look pretty, but falls short in competent AI development and game balancing at all stages of the game.

Well, we'll just need to keep waiting and hopefully see if these continuous big patches make this better. Because Rome 2 was unplayable at the start, but by patch 2-3 it became "somewhat" playable. Just still annoying and dumb when fighting the AI.

Further optimisation to Campaign path finding.
Improved the performance of selecting units.
Incremental performance improvements, reduced CPU bottleneck in a number of scenarios - further improvements pending in future patch.
Fixed crashes occurring when entering battles, declaring war, and ending turn after changing the unit size in the advanced graphics options menu in Campaign modes.
Fixed crash when placing deployables with a single click in invalid locations on the battlefield.
Fixed rare crash in battles when unit banners were moving slowly due to low frame rates.
Fixed an indefinite hang, when attacking Egyptian rebel army across the Nile in Campaign mode.
Fixed crash in the ambush controller caused by incorrectly assuming that an ambush battle was being loaded, when loading into a multiplayer land battle.
Fixed crash occurs during AI turn cycle, after changing the unit size options while in Campaign mode.
Fix for major performance issue caused by reinforcing naval units in certain circumstances.
The Campaign game will no longer crash when selecting the "Province Details" panel after selecting "Raise Forces".
Fix for crash due to transport ships erroneously being able to select shot types.
Fixed Campaign lock up when a rank 2 or higher General dies, after selecting a replacement with the "Duty Calls" event, then selecting any other open event, and then attempting to open Diplomacy.
Fixed a crash when rapidly clicking the fire button on the Polybolos unit in Frist Person mode.
Fixed rare crash when selecting an active mission in the Objectives panel in Campaign modes.
Fixed a rare crashing bug in the campaign when selecting units.
Improved performance of drag-outs and holding space to show unit proxies, by no longer render ghosts for men and mounts, as they were too expensive to render. Artillery, ships and vehicles still have ghosts rendered.
Fix rare crash when AI initiated diplomacy with the player.
Improved stability when moving between the Campaign game and front end.

Gameplay Improvements

Improved AI construction logic. It now constructs more military buildings.
Improved AI army compositions & unit quality. The AI uses better units and slightly less ranged units.
AI research is more military focused at the start of the campaign.
Slightly reduced the settlement defensive bonuses for the auto-resolver.
Increased the willingness of the AI signing trade agreements and defensive alliance.
The AI is now much more careful with constructing buildings that consume food or increase squalor. This has improved the AI's ability to fight food shortage problems.
Added more restrictions on the AI running too often making them exhausted by the time they reach their opponents.
Improvements to the AI defensive ambush behaviour.
AI now have improved ability to place its forces appropriately to deal with simultaneous front and side attacks. This involves angling and bifurcation of its *line with appropriate units to deal with the players use of flanking or harassing forces.
Fixed a bug where sometimes AI factions wouldn't generate a stance towards the player at the start of a Campaign, meaning they started the Campaign neutral to the players faction, and sometimes ask for peace immediately.
When generating armies, the AI is now more likely to choose elite units when they have the funds to do so.
Improved AI use of Pikemen in battles.
Fixed terrain height melee bonuses, so attackers on higher ground have an advantage.
Fixed problem with slinger units being overpowered as their shots could hit multiple units and made balancing adjustments to other projectile types .
Fixed pike phalanx single-click and double-click attack behaviour. They will now try to maintain proper distance from targeted unit instead of running into them.
Made it much harder for enemy infantry units to move/push through a pike phalanx.
Fixing bug where the AI will not know what do if river edge hint lines are present in a map without crossing hint lines. Also improving AI use of phalanx formation in river defence.
Increased chance of AI making alliances in diplomacy.
Flaming projectiles are now set as default for naval artillery when available.
Slightly increased the effects of diplomatic events on relations with third party factions, and the AI remembers diplomatic events for a longer period of time.
Difficulty can no longer be changed from the in-campaign game settings whist in a Campaign on Legendary difficulty.
Deployed agents on the campaign map, no longer reset back to being un-deployed when they level up.
Fix for missile troops sometimes firing in a "perfect" formation, rather than appearing natural and offset.
Diplomacy improvements - Factions attitudes towards each other are now mapped with colours on the map on the diplomacy screen. When your faction is selected, it shows other factions attitudes to you, and when other faction selected, shows their attitudes to other factions. Also, the factors tooltip now works between two non-player factions by selecting a non-player faction and moussing over another faction.
In Multiplayer battles, if the last remaining player in an alliance has a network timeout disconnection, the game will now be a draw.
Fix for units pursuing enemies when reacting to melee (not for direct orders). *Units will no longer pursue enemies when reacting to melee.
Fix for bug where units pursuing a routing unit could stop pursuing when the unit rallied even though they were still not in contact with the target.
Made individual cavalry units breaking out of combat more easily, to reduce units getting stuck in brawls.
Allied armies in siege battles now use separate default deployment lines so they don't deploy crammed into the same area.
Reduced qualifying trait list for various "Mad" traits (such as "Not quite right" or "Unhinged") for generals in campaign modes.
When a port is garrisoned in a port settlement, it is now possible to recruit units to the fleet.
Units are now automatically assigned to siege equipment in deployment.
If an AI faction offers an alliance to the player, it is no longer possible to offer satrapy status and have both active offers at the same time.
Fixed the firing arch for African elephant units.
The Loose formation button has been added for certain units in battle.
Teutoburg Forest historic battle is now more tolerant to the general or other Roman forces wandering off the beaten track.
The cap on Mounted Artillery pieces is now set at 6 per team / alliance instead of 6 per army.
When a host decides to make changes to the game setup (e.g. add new player slots) in a multiplayer lobby, these changes are now more accurately displayed to the clients in the lobby.
In Multiplayer Campaign mode, the "Show AI player moves" option is now reflected correctly for the client.
Multiplayer Ambush battles can no longer be started with 2v2 (or greater) numbers of players. This battle type is now limited to 1v1 as intended.
Whilst in a Campaign as Egypt, the "Defender of Alexandria" mission now requires the correct target to be completed.
Various fixes for men being unable to disembark from ships in battles.
Improved the visual arch of torches that can be thrown to burn down gates in battles. The distance / range that the torches travel was not changed, just the way they travel through the air is now more realistic.
Cinematic camera view in battles now works better with siege vehicles.
Disabled damage from rolling flammable projectiles that have landed on the ground (This does not include fireball deployables)

Balancing Changes

Re-balancing for Transport ships.
Enemies routing now have double the morale impact.
The Form Square unit ability now gives a small increase to morale and a bracing bonus in battles.
Re-balancing for the damage rate of fire on burning buildings and gates.
The Charge timeout tolerance has been reduced so heavy units aren’t so good at chasing down skirmishers.
Further reductions to Casualty morale penalties at lower levels.
Flanking and rear charge morale penalties have been increased.
Increase morale penalty for general death/fleeing.
Increased effect of rear attack in melee.
Reduced melee defence stats for most units, and increased shield melee defence values to even out the differences between units.
Melee attack reduced slightly for most units.
Increased melee defence for all shock cavalry units.
Tweaked balancing of Hoplite units.
Fix for Silver Shield Pikemen using wrong shield type.

Usability Improvements

Players can now customise the emblem on their Generals and Admirals banners. 32 new emblems have been added. When you select a General or Admiral on the Campaign map, and click the "Details" button, players can select a new emblem via a new user interface.
Switching graphics quality will no longer reset changes made to the "run in window" checkbox.
Fixed issue in Multiplayer Campaign diplomacy, where both players had control over the accept/cancel buttons at same time, so they could (for example) spam the send offer button to result in multiple trade agreements with same player.
Fixed user interface exploit which allowed the players in battles in Legendary difficulty, to pause battles and still issue orders to their units.
The Maintain blockade button no longer appears on the pre-battle screen after attacking an enemy army and clicking fight battle.
In Campaign modes, if an army is embarked on a navy and in a port (e.g. by capturing a port settlement with an army/navy) it is now easier to get that army out of the water and into the garrison.
Fixed issue where if the player declared war several times successively in diplomacy in Campaign modes, some of the text on the declare war panel would go missing.
"Army Destroyed" event message now displays the name of the army instead of the name of the general.
The "Food Shortage" event message no longer contains a list of provinces affected. This can still be reviewed in the Provinces panel.
Improved "Culture Details" interface when the mouse is placed over the "Culture" icon on a "Province Details" panel in Campaign modes.
Added event message for when units defect during a civil war in Campaign modes.
Rank up event message now contains the new rank for both characters and armies in Campaign modes.
Slowed down scrolling with the mouse wheel on the Province tab in Campaign modes, as it was too fast.
Prologue chapters are now unlocked as soon as the player plays them.
Improved the progress bar above ships in battles when they are boarding each other.
Fixed strength bar not being setup in negotiation screen of Diplomacy.
The Banner emblems have been removed from the top of barbarian unit banners to make it easier to distinguish Generals and Admirals.
The Cruel agent trait now has a positive icon instead of a negative one, as it has a positive effect.
Improved responsiveness of the Technology panel user interface in Campaign modes.
In Chat, remembered chat rooms are no longer re-created when they are not found. This is to fix the issue of lots of chat rooms being created, that only contain 1 person.
There is now a faction flag for each alliance involved in battle on the loading screen when loading into a battle.
Saving keyboard setups with characters such as "&, <, >," or ' " in the name is now supported.
When attacking a door of a fort with a battering ram, the per cent of damage will now reach 100% when the door to opens, instead of 20%.
The list of save games in the Save / Load menu now loads faster, and prevent the player from over-writing files with the same name by prompting them when this is about to occur.
Fixed issue when giving a double click move/attack order to a unit while dragging units into formation at the same time, which caused the drag-outs to get stuck to the cursor.
Fix for a bug in the "Cloud" tab of the save menu. When closing the menu and re-opening it, the "Cloud" tab was selected, but the cloud saves weren't listed.
Fix for a bug that allowed the player to use the "ping" function (which draws yellow arrows on the campaign map, when the player presses the [F5] key) in *Single Player Campaign, so it now only works in Multiplayer Campaign as intended.
When there is a civil war during a Carthage campaign game, the emerging Adirim Loyalists' faction icon is now sown next to the settlement names of settlements owned by Adirim Loyalists, instead of the original Carthage faction icon.
Fixed various missing texture issues on unit banners in battles for reinforcements, disembarking ships, and when flags were turned off and then turned on.
The group morale frames on Unit Banners are coloured same as ungrouped units in battles.
The "Attacker Direction" dropdown list has been hidden instead of greyed out in the Battle Setup screens for Custom and Multiplayer battles, when not applicable, to avoid confusion.
Trample abilities effects on fatigue are now clearer in battles.
In the Custom Battle setup screen, the Mare Ibericum battle map no longer remains selected when the player selects another map.
The portrait of the selected character on the Character Details screen in Campaign modes no longer overlaps frame around the portrait.
Fixed for land unit style category icons and tooltips sometimes being shown on ship unit banners during battles.
Fixed subtitles on some tutorial videos in the Encyclopaedia.
Fixed a bug where destroying one slave army would kill / make all the other slave armies disappear.
Unit cards now scale horizontally to a certain limit, to reduce the likelihood of requiring double row of cards, which takes up quite a lot of space on the screen.
The "Active Missions" button in the objectives panel now highlights correctly when selected.
The description text for the second objective ("White India") of the fifth historical chapter ("Excelsior") of the Parthia faction now fits correctly in the text box in the Objectives panel.
If the player uses the encyclopaedia shortcut while scrolling a menu, the scroll bar button will no longer appear on top (overlap) the encyclopaedia page.
Experience levelling up effects on banners are no longer displayed when banners themselves are hidden, e.g. in Cinematic Camera view in Battles.
The "Roma Captured" video now plays when Rome is captured on the Campaign map, when the player choses to loot or raze Roma.
Fixed bug when making an Offer / Demand in diplomacy that would stop the diplomats mouth from moving as they spoke.
Players can no longer select the Greek faction in Multiplayer Campaign mode with the arrow keys, when they don't own the Greek States Culture Pack DLC, which led to both players being returned to the main menu when loading the campaign.
Having the "Add Offer/ Demand" window open in diplomacy, while breaking a treaty will no longer cause the "Add Offer/ Demand" window to remain visible.
Players can now load a fleet or army on coastal and port assault battles, instead of only fleets.
Fix for Socii units missing variations in battles.
Added greaves to Carthaginian Hoplites units in battles.
Fix for Chosen Spear and Sword band missing helmet variation in battles.
Event messages that open automatically will now correctly open in order, one by one.
Pressing the "Cancel" button when changing the "Push to Talk" key in the Voice Chat Settings menu now works as expected.
Fixed issue where double clicking on a map in the map list in the Battle Setup screens (in Custom Battle and Multiplayer Battle modes) would make that map always remain highlighted as if it was selected.
The icon for glassware is now visible on the Hieron Ton Megalon Theon's building card.
Better consistency between the attributes that are displayed on the recruitment user interface for Generals and the attributes of the General once recruited.
Fixed tool tip on notification icon that appears on the "Details" button when units are available to upgrade.
When entering the diplomacy screen for the first time in Campaign modes, the accompanying speech now matches the text displayed.
Promotion level is now displayed on the Faction Summary and Faction Details *Panel in Campaign modes when a character is selected.
Placeholder text no longer displays on the pre-battle user interface for one player, when a rebel army attacks the other player in Multiplayer Campaign mode.
Pressing the Escape key while pacing the mouse over a construction options in the Settlement Details panel no longer leaves the construction options open while closing the Settlement Detail panel.
Increased Cataphract armour, and strong version added for Royal Cataphracts units.
Changed armour for Eastern Noble Horse Archers to Cataphracts.
Fix for incorrect colouring of battle list entries.
Clicking on the "zoom to location" button on event messages will now always take you to the correct location.
Added in missing standard bearers to Spartan and Carthaginian infantry units.
When an agent is with an army that is accompanying a fleet, separating the agent from the army now updates the user interface correctly, so that the agent no longer appears like it's with the army.
Fixed missing text on the "Accept" button when offering diplomacy to another faction in Campaign modes.
Fixed the arrows buttons functionality on various scrollbars in the Campaign user interface.
When viewing the total number of army units listed in a merged fleet, in the top left corner of the unit panel in campaign modes, it now correctly shows the number of units instead of incorrectly displaying the fleet total.
When a unit gains a rank during or after a battle in Campaign modes, there is now a "level-up" animation to highlight this.
The red left and right arrows on either side of the settlement name in the left hand side of the screen when a settlement is selected on the campaign map, now toggle between settlements more effectively.
When the Rhodes region is captured on the Campaign map, and under player control, viewing the Tactical Map will now colour the region correctly.
The arrow to sort by Food Production in the Province panel in Campaign modes now sorts correctly.
Fixed multiple issues surrounding certain events being fired at the same time as winning the game.
The movie player for Campaign movies will now correctly re-initialise its full screen state between queued movies.
Switching between different forces on the Campaign map, while in the Details panel is open, will now update the stance button, so the changing the stance with this button will now set the stance for the currently selected force.
When looking for an online multiplayer battle, the list of games available are in the Battle List window can now be scrolled with the mouse wheel.
When exiting negotiations with faction in the Diplomacy panel, that faction now stays selected in faction list so the player doesn't have to scroll down the whole list each time.
When placing the mouse over buildings that can be converted in a settlement in Campaign modes, the mouse now highlights the upgrades correctly.
Fixed the sort by diplomatic status button in the "Known Factions" list in the diplomacy panel in Campaign Modes.
In Multiplayer Campaign, when one player declares war on a faction and confirms this, the "Call your Allies to help!" checkbox is now hidden, as changing it after this point didn't do anything.
While choosing an agent action in Campaign modes, the player can now see the current treasury status of the agent in the agent action panel.
During all Quick Battle multiplayer games, when any player enters the deployment screen they are no longer shown as Rome for a couple of seconds while the game is set up.
Fixed reinforcing armies unit banners sometimes appearing darker and missing their outlines on the battlefield.
Unit banners will no longer appear black when turning on unit flags in a battle after turning them off in the campaign map.
The expanded tooltip for client state in diplomacy now no longer always displays 0.
Fixed tooltips for incident event effects in Campaign modes.
Arrow keys can no longer be used to move artillery weapons in First Person mode, as this was not an intended feature.
Fixed incomes from client states and satrapies not being shown correctly in diplomacy.
Improved menu response to use of double-clicks when using the "Controls" menu under "Settings" in the main menu.
In the Controls menu, if changes are made to controls and the Accept button is pressed, the save dialog appears automatically. If this dialog is cancelled, and the Accept button is pressed again, all control changes will no longer be discarded without warning.
Fixed some layout issues with faction list in multiplayer campaign.
The resources icons in the Trade & Finance tab now fit in the user interface better when multiple (over 6) different types of resources are being traded.
Added hull upgrade icon to Unit Cards, and fixed upgrade icons not appearing in battle.
Fixed the "Zoom to Province" button in campaign modes sometimes zooming to the last region within the province group, instead of the capital (main settlement).
Removed the confirmation dialog when quitting a battle when the player had already won and was chasing down routers, to avoid confusion about what will happen (as the player has already won, quitting just ends the battle with victory).
Fixed face animations and audio not working correctly in the diplomacy screen when declare war, and prevented adding new offers/demands from interrupting the face animations.
Text made clearer in the confirmation dialog when quitting a battle.
Addressed inconsistencies in the campaign Heads Up Display when selecting between enemy and friendly settlements and characters.
Added details of the effects to "Public Order" event messages.
The wider your resize the chat window the more rooms you can now see.
The Escape key now works correctly with the "Lock Visibility" option in chat.
Fixed issue where the cursor wouldn't update, if it had mouse over a text input box when transitioned between different areas of game, and stay as a text cursor within battles (for example).
In the Defence of Campania chapter of the Prologue campaign, the "infinity symbol" is no longer displayed on unit cards when the units can be recruited.
Fixed flickering graphics when the "downgrade warning" message appears on loading screens.
Fixed issue where the shroud would disappear from the Campaign Tactical Map and Mini-Map when entering Tactical Map or moving a character.
Fixed for rain being shown as an option for snowy regions in the Custom Battle setup screen, as it would just appear as snow in the battle anyway.
Added tooltips to the left and right arrows in "Your Forces" panel in pre-battle campaign phase.
Added some missing text for reinforcements on the pre-battle loading screen.
Altered tooltip for Siege Turn Time and Fix for Order of Battle reinforcements tooltip not displaying.
The text for "Show AI player movements" in Italian ("Mostra mosse dei giocatori") now fits correctly in the Multiplayer Campaign setup menu.
Phase timers are now displayed as a ring around Ability buttons in battles.
Added some text that was missing from the Faction Summary screen in Campaign modes.
Added current ancillary card to the "Ancillary Gained" event message.
The Province details button no longer remains selected after deselecting a settlement.
Removed the sound effect when placing the mouse over blank / empty character options in the Family Politics panel.
Update to the hyperlinks for "Armies" in the Prologue Defence of Campania.
The text for "Game Mode" in Italian ("Modalità di gioco") now fits correctly in the button in the Multiplayer Campaign setup menu.
Some hyperlinks in the user interface in Campaign modes have been removed, as it opened a blank page in the Encyclopaedia.
Fix for grammar errors in the subject dilemma text.
Fixed text clipping issues on building tooltips in Campaign modes in some languages.
Fixed text clipping on the campaign factors tooltip in some languages, now shows ellipsis to show text has been cut off.
Fixed possible cut-offs of text in the "Trait / Ancillary Gained" event message in Campaign mode.
Subtitles added to the Parthia Civil War video in Campaign modes.
Various localisation text and audio fixes in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Czech, Russian, Polish and Turkish.

I never actually said the old system was better btw, so good job putting words in my mouth. I just dislike the current iteration of the AI they are using, from the reviews and let's plays I've seen of it, it looks broken and buggy (ships driving on land, wut?). It could and should be improved to make it less schizophrenic. It's got potential, but it doesn't reach it from what I've seen.

Anyway, you answered my question, good day.

So you've never even played the game anyways so how do you even know aside from listening to people who haven't even played the game or want this to fail so hard?

It's getting so tiring that I'm just going to post a couple screens of what I've seen since it seems to be the rage that we all want everything to "fail"

Apparently there are rumors now that some of these videos are "MP" videos that are made to make the AI look really bad.

Spoiler:

This is pretty much what I see on my battles with the AI. It forms up a battle line with cavalry on flanks and engages my line. I don't expect anything super great but I've always been fine with that.

So I have no idea where people are getting the idea that the AI sucks.

Spoiler:

Depending on composition I've seen the AI send in 3/4 of their men and hold some back to send arrows into my lines or wait until an opening opens up and send their men into that breach to make it bigger.

Spoiler:

One of the weirdest comments I've seen is that the AI just camps at the flag though I have yet to see that.

When I make a breach, the AI will send all forces to those areas and hold that line. It will also keep reserves in the back to tire my guys out. This siege took me almost 20 minutes to finish and while to break them.

Spoiler:

If the AI has artillery it loves to make giant breaches in the walls so it can pour more men into it.

Spoiler:

AI knows how to use siege equipment and uses it to capture gates and towers.

Spoiler:

The AI kicked my ass in this one. They had one army cross the river and another at another crossing and destroyed me.

Spoiler:

I have also seen the AI expand and it's gotten better with Patch 4.

Spoiler:

In this minor settlement battle the AI keeps half of its forces away and sends in a unit at a time when their front is about to break. When my riders enter the middle though they do react and send in units to stop them.

And I haven't suffered a crash. Only with Beta 1.3 but that was easily fixed afterwards.

I've also seen confederations form, AI armies building forts, etc.

If you beat the AI then it'll sue for peace and even ask for client status.

So while there are problems in this game I do not see how this is unplayable.

So yeah, the game is helllllllalot better than it was when it first came out (tons of people speculated that it would take at least a month to fix up major issues). I started a new campaign again as Rome on very hard. I do have some mods with x2 unit size. The game runs very smooth compared to the beginning, especially in the world-view mode. Having no issues right now.

One of my concerns right now is diplomacy. Still kind of buggy and needs to be fixed (like when the losing faction asks for peace and DEMANDS money from you instead of offering if they are losing terribly).

My other concern is that the AI is still forming armies of basic/general units (like levies) instead of more advanced units as the turns progress. Kind of beats the point of actually assaulting. It's nice to always win, but again, battles last no more than 10 minutes. However, it might still be a little early for me to say this considering I started a new campaign.

Anyways, game is a LOT better and definitely worth buying now for those interested. More patches to come!

__________________

"Avoiding the truth but trying not to lie, and it's just terrible."

"Caring may occur without curing, but curing cannot occur without caring."

I have been playing parthia with 13 armored melee cav + 6 + general armored archer cav. It's insane the dmg they do.

BTW, when I got to Jerusalem area the city was in possession of axum... and I was wtf? Egypt was gone. Axum had a lot of prov there. I had an hard time time against them since they dont suffer attrition from the desert and always in forced march. Hunting for their armies was a pain in ass. But then again I got Jerusalem and other settlements from them in the area and leaving 1 army there they wouldn't attack at all... doh! T_T They won't come out of egypt.

Just noticed that the steam mod workshop is open. Some mods are on there. Radious's mods are on there which is probably the most popular with all the overhauls he's done and I highly recommend getting his mods. There is a 2, 4, and 12-turn per year mod as well. The workshop doesn't have too many mods yet though, but it'll get there.

__________________

"Avoiding the truth but trying not to lie, and it's just terrible."

"Caring may occur without curing, but curing cannot occur without caring."

Patch 7 went live yesterday. I kinda took a break since patch 4 or 5, but started a new on as house Julia of Rome and I definitely can tell a great improvement in the AI, overall FPS, and any bugs. I really like how they worked on unit formations and basically their overall "intelligence" during battle, especially during sieges. Their video they posted in regards to patch 7 mentioned something about putting back "rally points." IMO the game is totally worth buying, playing, and returning to now. Of course, one may want to wait for Black Friday or Cyber Monday sales, but I recommend this as a definite pick up!

Oh yeah, new free DLC coming up. They will be releasing Baktria as a playable faction. They didn't say if they were adding any other playable factions, but free is free !

__________________

"Avoiding the truth but trying not to lie, and it's just terrible."

"Caring may occur without curing, but curing cannot occur without caring."

Chariots man, chariots. They mow threw enemies like no tomorrow. They do not go amok like elephants, has some armor to take hits if they ever get stuck (elephants die easily to focus firing from arrows), the two units act as this lawn mower that tramples everything in the pathes.

In other news I think shock cavs are finally worth using since they made the AI try even hard to get unstuck (+density change). Sure, shock cavs are excellent at mowing down ranged units, but they fall pretty fast as soon as they get stuck in melee combat. Standard heavy cavs can easily have just stayed and fight.

There are still a lot of balance issues. The archer buff makes them better, but still imo, pales in comparison to ballistas. The ballista needs a good nerf vs units.

I don't have much interest in Baktria - I expect them to be played just like any other faction (except nomads).

Late game is ever so boring. I have so far only bothered to finish a single campaign: and that is with Arverni: simply because they can liberate thus an economic victory can be quite easily achieved... relatively speaking.

Rally Point is their little web show thing, nothing new.

This game is only fun for its battles (it does give a very epic feel): assuming you have a computer that can handle the unoptimized graphics. Other than that its actually quite boring (esp the campaign map portion: all my provinces essentially look the same and its often a cat-and-mouse game between me and forced marched armies).

Oh yeah politics system is still broken: no clue why I can no longer promote generals after the civil war, and the ending of the civil war does nothing if you are not Rome or Carthage.

I would only give this game a 6.5/10 if not for the "feel of the battle" - no other game lets you get the "I am commanding an army" feel better than TW. With that taken into account I would give it a 7.4/10.

I would wait for at least a 50% off sale. There are still a few major issues they gotta fix so no need to rush (ballistas and politics are what I would consider as minor there). How about to make my machine feel like a 386 during thunderstorms for a change?

Chariots man, chariots. They mow threw enemies like no tomorrow. They do not go amok like elephants, has some armor to take hits if they ever get stuck (elephants die easily to focus firing from arrows), the two units act as this lawn mower that tramples everything in the pathes.

Isn't that like the whole point of the chariots?

In any case I find that once they bog down into melee they fall like flies.

Quote:

Late game is ever so boring. I have so far only bothered to finish a single campaign: and that is with Arverni: simply because they can liberate thus an economic victory can be quite easily achieved... relatively speaking.

It's like that with every game in TW. Once you reach that point it's just a grindfest to get to your last objective.

The problem with TW games is they don't have anything worthwhile to getting to the end IMO.

Quote:

This game is only fun for its battles (it does give a very epic feel): assuming you have a computer that can handle the unoptimized graphics. Other than that its actually quite boring (esp the campaign map portion: all my provinces essentially look the same and its often a cat-and-mouse game between me and forced marched armies).

Charitos and elephants need a more clear role:
Are they supposed to be AoE shock cavs? Then they need to do good AoE damage on charge then be able to withdraw.
Are they supposed to be line breakers? Then the damage needs to be lowered by a lot, but they should still be able to go through enemy infantry lines, knock them down and break formation.
Give them proper counter: ie: archers (with fire) has been good vs elephants.
Cavalry should be good vs chariots (right now chariots i think can handle even noble cavs which are stronger than cataphracts since cataphracts are shock cavs with low def and no shield).

The late game portion can be elegantly bandaided with diplomacy. Make it easier for you to make friends (not harder!) with force. This will cause the AI to form military alliances towards the military center of that region, and in late game you can use diplomacy to form military alliances with factions instead of steamrolling through that last 30 province needed for a victory condition.

All provinces look the same meaning the building setup is the same: (and ofc, they are REALLY slow at adding new maps - although they are doing it. Every coastal barbarian village all look the same with that little side entrance and a hill above it...)
Basically you want (for hellenic/rome factions):
In Capitals:
City hall public order building
Library
Public order Temple
Might want a sanitation building for growth, or 2nd temple for food, or a city center food building

On settlements:
Food temple
Farm

That's pretty much the optimal setup. It just feels... boring.

One of the problem with the TW devs is that I feel as if they are stuck in tunnel vision mode:
Take the patch 7 formation attack thing.
Ok, you got hoards of people crying about formation attack on the forums, so they added that in.
But then, what is the point of using formation attack? Tests have shown that the blob is most effective in combat. I feel they added it not giving that function a clear purpose.

The various formations need a noticeable stat boost and a way to counter them (ie: ballista/back flank/elephants).

Some formations like the diamond formation isn't even worth using. For an optimal charge you want to spread out your cavalry units so every one of them can get a charge, instead of blobbing up, move at a reduced speed, and only allow maybe 10 charges to go through while the rest are stuck behind other cav units.

The devs need to take a look at the big picture again. How do the pieces fit together? How to make a fun game?

An idea of a fun faction would be one that is heavily reliant on their agents. Think of a faction that might have trash as units but agents have higher chance of critical success and more powerful operations! (or maybe they will throw in additional code to change max army size! It doesn't make sense how a full size Roman army is the same size as a full size nomadic army at 20 stacks).

Almost December and the game still sux. I feel like am alpha tester. I am done with TW game.

Seems like someone expected too much of the game

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

An idea of a fun faction would be one that is heavily reliant on their agents.

Probably not such a good idea. I think it was like patch 4 or something where they increased AI's use of agents to the point where every turn your agents/armies would get hit by dozens of agents from enemies or neutrals. It's definitely a lot better now with the agents.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

Oh, pikes still feel stupid to use and get stuck a lot.

I beg to differ. If you play defensively a lot like I did when I was Macedon, pikes/hoplites + archers make a good combo in any battlefield. Sure, their attack kinda sucks ballz, but they were made for defense. Mix up your army with swordsmen, not just full pikes. Phalanx is by far my most favorite formation of any unit (used to be Tetsudo but they seriously need to fix up the spacing of the units on that).

__________________

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Pikes are rather important for the defensive game. They are great once you have Catapults, as then with open battles it automatically forces the AI to come to you. Without Catapults the Pikes would be less useful. It is always better to play defensive if possible, just the nature of the units in that era.

Pikes are only good for choke points. (roads in town/gates) In open battles they can be tedious to use. The AI will avoid your line of pikes and attempt to flank if they are put in the front lines. Heavy infantry does not run into that problem since they are still powerful out of formation. While in a heads on fight pike would win out in an open field, you can easily use the mobility of your idle heavy infantry to attack another group of enemies from behind. Good luck trying to do that with your pikes without them stopping whenever the poke a few guys to death.

ie:

Code:

x x x
[ 1 ][ 2 ][ 3 ][ 4 ][ 5 ]

Groups 1,3,4 are fighting.
With pikes, 2 and 5 cannot easily help them out without getting stuck. While heavy infantry can go behind the forces of 1, 3 and 4 for a pretty nasty surround.

Stand alone DLC coming out December 12th for $15 bucks. A new "campaign" mode focusing on Rome vs the Gaul tribes, where you can play as Rome or any of the 3 Gaul tribes on a campaign map spanning across 18 provinces with the focus on 24 turns per year.

In addition, they're adding 3 new playable factions to the regular campaign map: Nervii, Boii, and Galatians. They are also adding one historical battle. Too bad they aren't adding "new" units to the current factions. In fact, there is nothing being added to the current factions.

I'll most likely get it (even though I'm not sure all that is worth 15 bucks, but it COULD have been worse ), but it's time they come out with patch 8 that fixes whatever =/. I am looking forward to the mini-campaign because sometimes the regular campaign is just too overwhelming and I'll only have to focus on 18 provinces (which IMO is NOT enough to make the campaign worthwhile). Hopefully, since that this new campaign is a lot smaller, frame rate won't be terrible. Aside from that, still enjoying my time as Rome. My battles are actually lasting longer than before and require a bit more skill. Fighting "average" units alone still takes a toll on my Praetorians; however, I still love being able to defend against a 1 vs 3 barbarian army. My loss is high, but it definitely gives me the thrill of having elite soldiers of Rome defend against hordes of barbarians just as in the movies.

__________________

"Avoiding the truth but trying not to lie, and it's just terrible."

"Caring may occur without curing, but curing cannot occur without caring."